British Open 2014 cut: Bubba Watson heads home, Tiger Woods barely makes cut

The British Open field has been cut down for the weekend with all players finishing at 2-over or better making it through to the final 36 holes. On Thursday night, it looked like the cut line might settle right around even-par or even slightly in the red, but the conditions toughened up for the second round and it hovered around 2- and 3-over all day.

The player most under the cut watch spotlight was Tiger Woods, who made it with a birdie on his last hole of the day. It was a startling and sudden tumble for Woods. He began the day in a tie for 10th place, but a double bogey on the first hole and a bogey on the second promptly pushed him back to level par. A string of grinding pars then brought him to the 17th, where he bombed one way out of bounds and seemed to check out on the whole tournament altogether. After hitting his provisional, Tiger would go on to make a triple-bogey and just like that he was on the wrong side of the cut line, needing a birdie to stay the weekend.

Fortunately for Woods, the last hole is a par-5, easily reachable in two and a prime birdie chance. Tiger put his second shot short of the green in front of a pot bunker, needing to get up and down. His final putt wasn’t exactly a gimme, but Tiger stepped up and drained the 10-footer to get down to 2-over and juuuust inside the cut line.

Woods is always the biggest star in any tournament in which he plays, so thankfully for ESPN and the Open, he’ll get two more rounds in his first major of the year.

But other top names were unable to string some birdies together and get below the cut line. Bubba Watson missed his second straight major championship cut after winning the Masters in April. It was pretty evident two days before the U.S. Open started that Bubba wouldn’t be a factor or be around for the weekend, as he didn’t exactly endorse the Pinehurst setup or its suitability for his game. He had the same sort of mental check-out at the British Open, an event and style that also doesn’t often mix with his game. Bubba was clearly rattled on Thursday about some of the crowd control issues, and he couldn’t take advantage of some of the par-5s down the stretch on Friday to make up ground and get to the weekend. Bubba then proceeded to rip the media and bolt town. It’s likely he keeps missing cuts at both the U.S. Open and British Open unless he changes his approach and attitude around these two majors.

Some of the other big names packing their bags and joining Bubba are Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Ernie Els, John Daly, and Padraig Harrington. Els, who played with Bubba in the first two rounds, never really recovered after he beaned an elderly spectator in the jaw on his first drive of the tournament. Els admitted it got to him, as he walked up to his ball and saw blood everywhere. That trailed him throughout a shaken opening round 79, and he was pretty much done for the week right there. It was an unfortunate and unlucky way to start, and essentially end, his week.

Here’s the group at 2-over that just snuck through, and then those who are heading home: